FATE: THE WINX SAGA Season One
Fairy Plotter
UK/US Netflix, streaming now Showrunner Brian Young Cast Abigail Cowen, Precious
Mustapha, Elisha Applebaum, Danny Griffin
It has what may well be the worst title of any TV series of the last year, and bears only a passing resemblance to Winx Club, the Nickelodeon kiddie toon that inspired it. Plus, given that it’s a story about a normal teenager finding out she has magical powers before being packed off to a school in the countryside, Fate is also a dead ringer for a certain famous wizarding saga – which is, at least, given a knowing namecheck in one episode.
However, these drawbacks soon fall by the wayside as the show’s lush Irish locations, personable characters and well-handled emotional beats start to work in perfect sync. At the show’s heart is Bloom (Abigail Cowen), a recently diagnosed fairy trying to get a grip on her fire powers. Her schoolmates are proper Breakfast Club material – the athlete, the basket case, the brain and the (literal) princess – and there are squabbles and heroic deeds aplenty as they attempt to unearth Bloom’s past and defeat the mysterious, deadly “Burned Ones” who are gathering in the woods. There are also love triangles – not all of them straight – and a not entirely convincing subplot about an evil student up to no good.
Best of all, the young cast are given sterling support from adult thesps including Lesley Sharp and
There’s an absolutely cracking finale
Eve Best, who plays Dumbledo… er, the school’s headmistress. Our only real complaint is that this six-episode season feels way too short, but there’s an absolutely cracking finale. The second series should be a bloody corker.
Ariana Grande had a vocal role in the English dub of the original toon, as snobby, spoiled fairy Princess Diaspro.